


sea anchor

by winchilsea



Category: One Piece
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-04 19:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15847971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winchilsea/pseuds/winchilsea
Summary: Boa Hancock is pirate, empress, one who has eaten a devil fruit. And she is in love with Monkey D. Luffy. These things are not mutually exclusive.





	sea anchor

**Author's Note:**

> just a tiny thing

“My husband, Luffy,” Hancock says in the middle of a sentence, smile meant for no one except herself already blooming despite Grandma Nyon reprimanding her about her delusional fantasies. She cares not for Grandma Nyon’s words. They are nothing to her—Boa Hancock, pirate, empress, one who has eaten a devil fruit.

Still: “Is it not strange,” Hancock says, fingers flicking through her long hair, “for you to berate me in this when it was you who abandoned this kingdom for love?”

Grandma Nyon ungracefully sputters, her crone hands tightening around her staff. “That’s not the same!” she insists.

“No,” Hancock agrees. “It isn’t.” Her time is too valuable to even be spent condescending to a bygone relic that doesn’t seem to understand her own irrelevance. She has a kingdom to rule, an ocean to traverse, a bath to take—really, there’s no time in her schedule to educate Grandma Nyon.

But Hancock can’t help herself. There are embers ever-burning in her lungs, fed by the scalding mark stamped upon her back. Hideous, a touchstone always for the fear to creep into her veins again. She must, of course, let people know when they are nothing to her.

So Hancock, ever so generous with her time, says, chin tilting up until the old woman, the dethroned empress, disappears beyond her perfect nose, “It isn’t the same, for you confessed lovesickness drove you from this island.” She is beautiful and powerful. “Yet here I, an empress in love, remain.”

The fury rises all at once. She can name it for what it is: cold arrogance. _Justified_ cold arrogance. “You were weak. You left. You abandoned this island. But I am still empress, perfect and beautiful and forever. I will _never_ —”

She sucks in a breath, leaning back against Salome and letting the great snake cradle her. 

_I will never be vulnerable. Never again. Never._

“Begone, Grandma Nyon.”

“Do you think the lovesickness takes you all at once, Hebi Hime?” Grandma Nyon asks because she is incapable of obeying an order. “It will whittle at you until—”

“Then let it whittle.” Bored of this conversation, Hancock closes her eyes. Grandma Nyon understands nothing of what she speaks. Grandma Nyon was never a pirate, only an empress.

It is only the first time Hancock has ever been in love, but even still she knows: it is different when you are a pirate in love with another pirate. When you are a pirate captain in love with another pirate captain. And almost certainly when the pirate captain you are in love with love is _him_. 

“I wish to be alone,” she announces imperiously. This time, the room empties.

Boa Hancock is pirate, empress, one who has eaten a devil fruit. She knows all about anchors in a storm.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](http://winchilsea.tumblr.com) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/mountliang)!


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